374 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



charge of McDonald, Dr. Hayes now pushed on with Knorr alone, until, on May 

 18, he reached the border of a deep bay, where farther progress to the north 

 was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Right before him, on the opposite side 

 of the frith, rose Mount Parry, the lofty peak first seen by Morton in 1854 from 

 the shores of Washington Land ; and farther on, a noble headland. Cape Union 

 — the most northern known land upon the globe — stood in faint outline against 

 the dark sky of the open sea. Thus Dr^ Hayes divides the honor of extreme 

 northern travel with Parry. 



On July 12 the "United States" was released from her icy trammels, and 

 Dr. Hayes once more attempted to reach the opposite coast and continue his 

 discoveries in Grinnell Land, but the schooner was in too crippled a state to 

 force her way through the pack-ice which lay in her course, and compelled her 

 commander to return to Boston. 



Thus ended this remarkable voyage ; but having done so much. Dr. Hayes 

 is eager, and resolved, to do still more. Fully convinced by his own experience 

 that men may subsist in Smith's Sound independent of support from home, he 

 proposes to establish a self-sustaining colony at Port Foulke, which may be made 

 the basis of an extended exploration. Without hnj second party in the field to 

 co-operate with him, and under the most adverse circumstances, he, by dint of 

 indomitable perseverance, pushed his discoveries a hundred miles farther to the 

 north and west than his predecessors ; and it is surely not over-sanguine to ex- 

 pect that a party better provided with the means of travel may be able to trav- 

 erse the 480 miles at least which intervene between Mount Parry and the pole. 

 The open sea which both Morton and himself found beyond Kennedy Channel 

 gives fair promise of success to a strong vessel that may reach it after having 

 forced the ice-blocked passage of Smith's Sound, or, should this be impractica- 

 ble, to a boat transported across the sound and then launched upon its waters. 



Captain Sherard Osborne, who is likewise a warm partisan of this route, has 

 been endeavoring to interest Government in its favor ; but in the opinion of 

 other scientific authorities an easier passage seems open to the navigator who 

 may attempt to reach the pole by way of Spitzbergen. To the east of this 

 urchipelago the Gulf Stream rolls its volume of comparatively warm water far 

 on to the north-east, and possibly sweeps round the pole itself. It was to the 

 north of Spitzbergen that Parry reached the latitude of 82° 45'; and in 1837 

 the " Truelove," of Hull,* sailed through a perfectly open sea in 82° 30' IST., 15° 

 E., and, had she continued her course, might possibly have reached the pole as 

 easily as the high latitude which she had already attained. 



The distinguished geographer. Dr. Augustus Petermann, who warmly advo- 

 cates the route between Spitzbergen and Greenland, has, by dint of perseverance, 

 succeeded in collecting among his countrymen the necessary funds for a recon- 

 noitring voyage in this direction. Thanks to his exertions, May 24, 1868, wit- 

 nessed the departure of a small ship of eighty tons, the " Germania," Captain 

 Koldewey, from the port of Bergen, for Shannon Island (75° 14' lat.), the 

 highest point on the east coast of Greenland attained by Sabine in 1823. Here 

 the attempt to explore the unknown Arctic seas beyond was to begin ; but, 



* "Athenaeum," Dec. 3, 1853. 



